In order to post a new message or reply to an existing message, you must have
registered for and activated an account, and have Logged in. This process can be
accomplished by first clicking on the Register button in the menu and
completing the required information, including your desired User Name and password,
agreeing to the conditions, and clicking Register at the bottom of the
screen.

You will receive a confirmation email with a link to activate your
account. You must click on the link in the email, or your account will not be activated and you will not be able to log in. After you have activated your account using the link in the confirmation email, you will be able to log in using your User Name and
password.

Please note that you will not be able to receive your confirmation email if you
use a spam blocker or service that does not accept our email. We are unable to
respond to the kind of spam blocker that automatically sends us a link to click
before you can read our confirmation email. Also, please ensure that your email isn't set with an automated "away" message when you register for an account.

If you forget your password and are therefore unable to log into the forum, the
login screen gives you an option to request a password reminder. The reminder
will be sent to the email address you entered when you originally registered for
an account on the forum. It's also the same email address to which the account
activation email was sent.

Please note that you will not be able to receive the password reminder email if
you use a spam blocker or service that does not accept our email. We are unable
to respond to the kind of spam blocker that automatically sends us a link to
click before you can read the password reminder email.

There's also an option to reset your password by correctly answering a 'secret question'. However, you must have previously answered the question in your profile to be able to use this feature.

Logging In

If you're newly registered in the forum and have clicked on
the link in the registration email, you'll be presented with the login screen:

Simply enter the Username and Password you used to register. The Session Length box means the length of time you'll be logged in before being required to login again. If you share your computer with others and are
likely to forget to log out, you might want to to select a short time here. But,
if no-one else has access to your computer, you might prefer to select Forever.

Quick Login

If you have been logged out from a previous visit, you can use the Quick Login
box located above the menu:

Logging Out

When you have finished browsing the forum, or you
share a computer with someone else and don't wish them to access the forum
using your name and password, you may decide to logout. Click the Logout button in the menu and you
will be logged out of the forum.

If you've arrived at the forum as a guest and wish to register, click on the
Register button in the menu and you will be presented with the
Registration Agreement; Scroll to the bottom to click Accept the agreement, and you will be presented with the Registration Screen:

You will need to enter a desired username, password and a valid email address.
If you don't wish others to send you emails, don't check the Allow users to email me: box. Continue to complete the form and click Register. You will be sent an email with a link to
click on in order to activate your account and log into the forum. Note that the registration process is not complete until you've activated your account and you will not be able to log in until you've done so. Registration is a 1-time requirement.

In order to post a new message or to reply to an existing message on the Forum,
you must be Registered and Logged In. This process is free of charge and can be
accomplished by first clicking on the Register button in the menu, then log
in when you receive your confirmation email.

Until you have had time to become accustomed to the Forum Tools for posting a
message, finding a message or configuring your Forum preferences, click on the
Help/FAQ button in the menu to see this list of how-to topics.

In short, to post a new message, open one of the Forum Message Boards, and click the New Topic button once you have registered and
logged in.

To change your name in the forum (the name that appears in your forum messages), click on Profile in
the menu, then click Change profile and select Account Related Settings. Enter the name you wish to use in the box provided, then click Change
Profile at the bottom of the page. Please don't use your email address as your name.

Your profile contains information you wish others to see about
you in addition to your preferences for this forum. To edit your profile &/or
set your preferences, click Profile in the menu and select Modify Profile.

Enter a Signature that will be automatically added to all of your messages.

Enter your personal website address.

Look and layout preferences:

Set the time format for your messages and adjust your local time. Note that
our servers are located in Chicago, IL and you'll need to enter an offset equal
to the time difference between U.S. Central time and your current location. e.g. if you're
in California, enter -2.

Select from a number of options that will affect how the forum is displayed
in your web browser.

There's also an option to have the time offset detected automatically by your browser.

Notifications and email:

Select from various options to be notified via email of replies to your
messages, new topics and forum announcements.

Personal messaging:

Select who you wish to receive personal messages from.

Select from options to receive email notification &/or show a popup window
when you receive a new personal message.

To change your time zone, click Profile in the menu and select
Look and Layout Preferences from the Modify Profile box. Use the Time Offset parameter to correct for your local time.
e.g. insert -2 to make your local time 2 hours behind the time currently shown.

To display an avatar by your forum name in your forum messages, click Profile in the menu, then Modify profile and select Forum profile. Under Personalized picture, you'll see several options, including selecting from our large gallery of avatars, uploading your own, or no avatar.

Some buttons on the menu above and some of the message
boards are visible only to registered and logged in forum members. So, if you
haven't yet registered for an account, click Register. You'll receive an
email with a link to activate your account. Once activated, you can log in with
your chosen name and password, and you'll be able to see the "missing" items.

If you've tried to post a message on any of our message boards you'll have
noticed that this also requires you to be registered and logged in.

If you can't see the top part of the page that has links to
your unread messages, you may have inadvertently collapsed the header of the page. All you
need do is click the downward-pointing chevron (triangle-shaped button) in the upper right corner of the page to
display the missing part; The chevron will change to an upward-pointing one. Clicking the upward-pointing chevron will again hide the information at the top of the page.

If you're someone who prefers to browse our message boards, starting at the Home (index) page, you'll see that the boards are arranged in various categories, including:

Forum news & announcements.

RVing message boards.

RV-related and other recreational activities.

Reviews.

Navigating the forum.

If you prefer not to see the message boards in one or more of these categories, you can click the category name to hide all the boards in that category. If you wish to expand the category and see the hidden boards, just click the category name.

Note: Collapsing a category to hide message boards will not exclude messages on those boards when you use the Show unread messages link.

Note: There is a maximum size limit for each photo and a maximum total
size for all photos attached to the same message. These limits, which are shown
on the attachment screen, are in place primarily to help folks who are on cell
phones or other slow connections. If your individual photos are under the limit
but the total is over, try attaching some to a second message; Just reply to
your own original message and attach the additional photos.

There are numerous buttons for formatting text, located above the message composition box.

Alternatively, for those who prefer to use html-style tags, this forum uses
Bulletin Board Code (or BBCode) that will allow you to do this stuff. Click
here for an explanation of the use of BBCode and the use of the BBCode
toolbars.

If you use the Firefox browser, you can download the BBCode Extra addon here

One caveat - please remember that, if you get too fancy with your formatting,
others may not appreciate your razzle dazzle &/or may not bother to read your
message.

We believe there are no dumb questions, only dumb answers. Most of us here had no
clue about RVing at some point in time; We learned by asking questions and
following the advice of folks who had been there and done that. So, please do not
feel embarassed about asking questions. Yours might be the question that someone
else wanted to ask, but didn't.

We welcome questions but, rather than post a laundry list of questions in a
single message, please limit your messages to one or two related questions each. That way,
you can use a relevant subject line for each. Your questions will be more likely
to get responses, and it will be
easier for folks coming along behind you to follow the discussion. Feel free to post additional messages in new topics with your additional questions.

If you make a typo or state something incorrectly and notice it
after you've clicked the Post button, you can easily correct it. Click the Modify button in the top right of the message. Make your changes, then click Save below the message to save your changes. However, there's a time limit beyond which you won't be able to edit your message.

A note will be automatically appended to the bottom of your message to indicate
when it was last changed (edited).

Highlight that text and click the Insert Quote button (above the smilies).

Continue to compose your reply.

Alternatively:

Click the Quote button instead of the Reply button.

Highlight and delete the text you don't want.

Continue to compose your reply.

Please do not quote entire messages in your reply; This is unnecessary and can be annoying for readers. All that's typically needed in a quote is a phrase or sentence to put your reply in context; The remainder of the original message should be excluded or edited out of your quote.

It's possible to quote several separate paragraphs, and reply to each one individually. To do that, just follow the instructions above for each individal paragraph and type your reply after each one.

To start a new topic, navigate to the board where you wish to
post a message and click the New Topic button. Enter a subject and type your
message in the main text area. A message missing either a subject or a body
will not be accepted for posting until it has both.

You can have your message checked for spelling errors by clicking the Spell
Check button.

This forum uses Bulletin Board Code (or BBCode) instead of html
to allow you to format text in your messages. Since the use of BBCode can cause
unexpected results, you should preview your formatted message before posting
by simply clicking the Preview button.

Instead of having to remember the codes, a series of default ones appear in a
toolbar above the smilies in the Message composition window. For the most part,
you can highlight the area of text you wish to modify and click the respective
icon. e.g. to bold a block of text, just highlight the required text and click
the Bold icon.

If you're comfortable typing the tags out longhand, here's an explanation of BBCode used in this forum. However, just remember that BBCode
tags are enclosed by square brackets [ ] rather than the familiar chevrons < >
used for html tags.

Choose the most appropriate board to post your message. To see a list of our
message boards, click the Home button above. Please do not post the same message
on multiple message boards as this will likely result in replies appearing in different discussions; It's preferable to have all the replies appearing in a single discussion. Note that a Moderator may move your message to a more appropriate board, or one where you'll be more likely to get an answer.

There is a limit on the size of individual files, the number of attachments,
and the total (combined) size of attachments to an individual message
(these limits are displayed below the attachment window). These limits are somewhat arbitrary,
and exist to prevent someone uploading huge files which would eat up server
space and bandwidth. They also help ensure that folks on slow connections can
access the files. But, if you have a larger file you feel should be shared with
other members, please contact the forum administrator privately. Similarly, if you feel there's a
need for additional file format(s).

Private for-sale or wanted ads can be posted on our Private for-sale and wanted items board. Include (attach) photos to help improve your chance of selling. Be sure to include contact information for potential buyers to be able to get hold of you. All ads are automatically locked to prevent undesired comments from being posted as replies. Note that commercial ads are not allowed, and will get the poster banned for spamming our forum.

If you need to change your private for-sale ad (e.g. if you need to change the price), contact the forum administrator with the desired change. (Click here to contact the Administrator).A large change or complete re-write is best dealt with by posting a new ad and asking the forum administrator to delete the original.

Posting long links can cause issues with how they're displayed and can affect if/how they work. Instead, consider using the Insert hyperlink tool (located on the left of the row of links above the row of smilies).

Don't write your message in a single long paragraph; It makes it hard to read and even harder to digest. So, please split your message up into smaller paragraphs. If you're unsure what a paragraph is, just split your message into smaller chunks and use the Return key on your keyboard a couple of times to separate each chunk.

Some of us spent a career reading and digesting volumes of manuals, specs, standards and contracts. But, when we see a long message typed as a single paragraph, it's likely to be ignored.

Don't use all caps
Using all capitals (uppercase) is considered SHOUTING in the online world, and also makes your message more difficult to read.

So, if you want someone to read &/or respond to your message, please make it digestible by breaking it into smaller paragraphs, and don't use all caps.

A forum Moderator might move your post to a more appropriate message board, or one that would likely get more attention and attract more replies. This is an everyday occurrence, so please don't feel that you've been singled out.

Questions and answers form the core knowledgebase of any forum; Being able to read prior answers to someone else's question will often provide all the information that someone is looking for. Although you received your desired answer(s), deleting your question and related discussion prevents others from receiving the benefit of that knowledge. Therefore, we do not normally delete such discussions even when asked.

There are two ways to be notified of a personal (private)
message from someone else. Both methods are set up by clicking Profile
in the menu:

To be notified via email:

Click Personal messaging under Modify profile.

Check the box labelled Notify by email every time you receive a personal
message.

Click Change profile at the bottom of your screen.

Please do not reply to these automated email notifications, as they have nowehere to go; Either click the link at the bottom of the notification, or go directly to your Private messages to reply.

To be notified via a popup window:

Click Personal messaging under Modify profile.

Check the box labelled Show a popup when I receive new messages.

Click Change profile at the bottom of your screen.

When you have been notified of a new personal message, you can view the content
of the message by clicking the line at the top left of your screen that says
Hello, (your name), you have x messages, y are new.

If someone has sent you a Personal (private) Message, the
Welcome line at the top of any forum page will say, for example:

Hello, (your name), you have 3 messages, 1 is new.

The first number is the total number of messages in your Inbox and the second
number is the number of messages you haven't yet read.

To view your personal messages, click on the x messages link, or click My Messages in the menu.

To have the system send you an email alerting you to a new personal message,
click the Profile button in the menu, click Personal Messaging,
then check the box labelled Notify by email every time you receive a personal
message. Finally, click Change Profile.

To send an email to another forum member, click on the envelope icon beneath their user name.
Alternatively, view their Profile and click on the email link in the profile. Note that, if
someone has chosen not to allow members to send them emails (via a setting in their profile), neither the envelope icon nor
the email link in their profile will be visible.

You need to enable this feature by visiting your Profile (button in the menu) and, under Modify profile, select Account settings. Check the box to Allow others to email me, and scroll down to click Change profile. An 'envelope' icon will now appear beneath your name/avatar in forum messages, letting folks know they can send you an email; They merely have to click the 'envelope'.

Note that enabling this option does not reveal your email address to other forum members; emails are sent via an email form produced by the forum software, not via the sender's email system. However, your email address will be visible to the recipient on receipt of your email message.

To reply to a topic while viewing one or more messages in the topic,
click the Reply button in the menu immediately above the first message
on the page. The subject will be automatically filled in. Enter the text of your
reply in the large white box. Before posting the reply you can use the options to
Preview or Spell check using the buttons immediately below the white box.
When you're happy with your reply, click Post and your reply will be
posted to the topic.

For clarification, all replies here are replies to a topic. At this time, it's
not possible to reply to individual messages, although you can quote an individual
message in your reply as explained here.

Patiently (or impatiently) waiting for the answer to your gotta
know now question?

We have a wonderful group of volunteers on the RV Forum staff who patiently
answer questions based on their respective knowledge, experience and expertise.
However, please remember that they are not necessarily sitting at their PC
waiting for the next question to be asked, although it might sometimes appear
that way. In addition to having lives to lead, they may be in different time
zones or may be in transit to their next destination. They may even be unlucky
enough to be offline due to lack of an internet connection. The same goes for
other forum members who may have the answer you need. So please be patient and
check back later, several times if necesary.

If you can't find the question you posted, click the Profile button in the menu, then click on the link Show posts.

If you find public messages from one or more members annoying and don't wish to see them, here's how to use the forum software to ignore them:
Click Profile from the menu.
Click Buddies/Ignore list under Modify profile.
Select one of the options and click Change profile at the bottom right to make the changes stick.

Click Profile in the menu, then click Modify profile, and select Look and layout. Check (or uncheck) the box to Show most recent posts at the top. Scroll down and click Change profile to make the change permanent.

Replying to old messages/topics is generally a waste of time; Not only is the discussion old and no longer of interest to the prior posters, but the original poster may no longer be participating on the forum &/or had his/her question answered a long time ago. Instead, consider starting a new topic.
If you attempt to reply to a topic that hasn't been posted in for more than 120 days, you'll see a warning on the screen.

If a topic has multiple pages and you don't wish to read through every page, here's how to 'jump' between pages. Above the first message and below the last message on the page you'll see numbers representing the pages of that topic. Click any of those page numbers to go directly to the page.

If you haven't been here for a while and have a lot of new messages in a topic, you can also set your preferences to see the most recent at the top. Just click the Profile button in the menu, then click Modify profile and select Look and layout. Check the box labeled Show most recent posts at the top. Don't forget to scroll down and click the Change profile button to save the changes.

For a single post, you could copy and paste the post into a document like Word and then save or print that.

Click the Print button at the top or bottom of a topic page. That will format the entire topic, all pages if there are more than one, in a format suitable for saving as text or printing. However, that won't include any attached images.

Our forum is comprised of multiple message boards, or "boards", each containing discussions (or topics) on various subjects. A child board is a board which is placed within another board. This effectively makes the board that the child board is placed inside of a parent board. Child boards can be very useful to split up discussions within a board which covers a broad subject area. It can also help keep things organized, when one subject is directly related to another.

The collection of message boards and child boards here is what we refer to as our forum.

If you're done reading and don't wish to read any more new messages, nor have them show up again, here's how; Click the Mark all messages as read button located above the first message on the page, or below the last message on the page. The "read" status will be applied to all messages in the forum, including ones posted after "view all unread" is clicked.

Alternatively, you can check the box to the right of some messages and click the Mark selected read button.

Click on the name of the category (e.g. RV-related and other recreational activities), and the boards in that category will be hidden. Click on the name again, and the boards in that category will reappear.

If you can't find that message you just know you posted, here's one way to find it:

Go to your profile by clicking the Profile button in the menu above. Scroll down the profile page and click on the link Show posts and select Messages. Clicking
this link will return all the messages you've posted on the forum. Bookmark the link (or save in your favorites) to make it easier to come back to this page.

Near the top left of your screen there are up to three underlined links:

Hey Tom, you have 3 new messages, 2 are new. Refers to private forum messages, and is only visible if you have unread PMs waiting for you.

Show unread posts since your last visit. Returns a list of topics
with unread messages. Click on the blue New icons in this list to read the unread messages.

Show new replies to your posts. These will be any replies to a topic (thread) that you started.

If you can't see these links on your screen, you may have inadvertently hidden the
header information. To see the header, click on the up arrow in the top right corner of the screen. (If the arrow is pointing down, the header info is already visible).

Reports of forum members' trips are initially posted in our Trip reports, journals and logs message board, and necessarily include discussion with other forum members. In a number of cases, we've copied reports to the Trip reports section of our forum Library (button in the menu), after removing the discussion with forum members.

Although we try to keep our rules to a minimum, experience has shown that some guidelines are necessary for participation in the forum. These rules can be viewed by clicking the About button in the menu and scrolling down to Forum rules. Note that, when you registered and activated an account in the RV Forum, you also agreed to a set of conditions; The Rules page contains a link to the Registration Agreement should you need a reminder of its content.

Click the Photos button in the menu. Photos are organized in albums in a gallery format. Click on the 'cover image' of an album to view thumbnail images of all the photos in that album. Click on a thumbnail to see a larger image, and click again to see a full size image.

While viewing a member's profile, click the Send PM or Send email link. Note that these links are visible only if the member has enabled them in their profile. Also, PMs can only be sent by members who have posted a minimum number of public messages.

To enter the chat room in order to participate in our live weekly
Virtual Campfire (normally held every Wednesday evening at 6.00pm PT, 9.00pm ET),
click on the Chat button in the menu. Enter a User Name (it does not need to be your forum user name), leave the Password blank (passwords are only required for Moderators), and click Login. You'll now enter the
Virtual Campfire.

We currently have over 200 files and articles in our forum library and the number
continues to grow. The files can be viewed by clicking on the Library button in the menu.
You'll see a list of categories, which currently include:

Batteries and DC (12V) stuff

Buying an RV

Checklists

Conversions and remodels

Driving and safety tips

Electrical ower systems and hookups

Fishing

Forum navigation

Fresh water systems

Fulltiming

Hygiene, health and medicine

Maintenance items

Major repairs

Miscellaneous

Newcomers need to know

On the water

Places to see and things to do

Places to stay

Quick fixes

RV how-to's

RV'ing in Canada

Rallies

Recipes

South of the border

Tech topics

Towing and towables

Trip reports

Visitors to the USA

Waste systems

Winnebago-specific content

The files are contained in one or other of these categories. (More categories
can/will be added as appropriate).

One caveat - don't look for photographs to be linked this way. Although a few
of the files have embedded photos used to illustrate something within the files,
our standard method of accepting and displaying photos is via attachments to messages.
Additionally, where it makes sense, we create photo albums, accessible via the
Photos nutton in the menu.

If you have additional RV-related (non-photo) files or content you'd like to
include, please attach them to a forum message or email them to me. (Look for my
photo with the label Administrator and click the envelope icon beneath my name).

Can't see the Library button or the Photos button? You need to register
and log into the forum. Click here for an explanation of how to
register.

We do our best to ensure that all links we post in messages
and files are correct at the time of publication. However, errors will occasionally
occur and/or the intended destination of links can change for various reasons.

If you click on a link and it either doesn't work or takes you to an unintended
place, please let us know so we can correct it. Click
here
to report the link.

If we have a major outage on our forum (i.e. one that will keep us off the air for an extended time), whether planned or otherwise, we'll provide some information and status updates on our blog here. Bookmark this link (or save it in your favorites) for future reference.

In the case of planned outages, we'll attempt to provide advanced notice on the forum; At these times, you may see a message letting you know that we're performing forum maintenance and suggesting you check back later.

We won't normally update the blog for minor interruptions such as transient equipment or networking issues, software updates and routine backup or maintenance routines.

In any event, you can be sure we'll always focus on getting the forum back online in an expedient manner.

Tapatalk requires modification of our software code which, in turn, can cause a huge problem (for me) when updates to our software come along. TT can also be a potential security issue. A number of forums refuse to install TT, and our software developers have taken a similar stance. Far be it for me to second guess the experts.